I started to be interested in Islam during my studies of Political Sciences. It was the time of Samuel Huntington´s "Clash Of Civilizations" and his thesis made me curious to find out more about this Islamic Civilization that was supposed to be the new enemy of the West.
My first approach was therefore a scientific and analytic one. I read about the general ideas and conceptions of Islam, about its way to organize the society and the personal interaction of people – and everything sounded very logical to me. It seemed to be a system of principles that takes into account the human nature and the need for mutual respect and personal responsibility in order to organize the society in a just and peaceful way. What a convincing social order, I thought by myself, without paying too much attention to the divine element in Islam.
As I was happy in my life I was neither searching for a religion nor for any spiritual experiences.
At the same time, I was disgusted by some behaviours in the West, especially when it came to personal relationships and the dealing with intimate things in public. The West had liberated itself from all moral values, I felt, and was about to loose the last bit of human dignity if it continued his way of consumption, self-fulfillment at others' expenses, individuality and calculating personal interests.
People had lost their natural feeling for what was good or bad, right or wrong, acceptable or unacceptable. They were out of balance, slipping from one extreme to the other, trying this and that without finding any satisfaction or inner contentedness.
I decided to stop drinking alcohol for four weeks to find out what my
life would be like without. And after one week I was shocked by the
fact that nothing had changed and my life was just the same like before. This was five years ago, since then I never touched a glass of
wine again. I had many discussions with my family and friends about
this. They think I am being hard to myself and not enjoying life
any more. They don´t realize that I just don´t miss drinking alcohol, not once it came to my mind.
Step by step, Islam started to enter my daily life. I wanted to put in practice what looked logical to me in theory. I adapted my behaviour
to Islamic principles by trying to do good without any personal interest behind … to be honest and clear in my relationships with others … to care for my family … to liberate myself from greed, envy meanness, vanity, pretension and other vices.
I asked myself: What do I believe in? Who created the world? Who gives the circle of life its natural balance? Who decides about our fate and makes incredible things happen every day? I found that everything was too perfect to be pure chance. And God was the only plausible explanation for me, although his existence has never been proven or disproven until now.
In the end it´s a personal question of faith and I found that my life was easier with the assumption and acceptance that there was one single God behind everything .I decided I had studied Islam long enough only from books and should go to the Muslim world to see Islam in practice. Honestly, I think I might have entered Islam earlier if I had stayed in the West because I met a lot of Muslims who don´t know their religion well. They follow traditional ways of Islam that sometimes even contradict Islamic rules.
Everything new and strange I had to examine carefully: Was it Arab tradition or Islamic thought? I learned how to differentiate between tradition and religion and realized that I didn't have to become an Arab to be a Muslim. I could keep my European cultural background and be a perfect Muslim at the same time.
After three years in the Middle East I asked myself: What prevents me
from entering Islam? I was fasting in Ramadan; I talked to God (in personal prayers, not in the formal worshipping), I didn't drink, I didn't smoke, I didn't eat pork - many people around me already considered me a Muslim from my way of thinking and living. But inside myself I had this big resistance, I was reluctant to accept God's message and Mohammed as his prophet. I didn't want to loose control, I guess. Plus, it's not easy to become a Muslim in times when people's throats are cut off in the name of Islam and when the whole West is associating Islam with violence and terrorism. So I fought a real struggle to surrender…
In the end, I understood that my decision doesn´t depend on other Muslims´ deeds but on my personal faith. And I realized that faith means surrendering oneself to God´s will. This Ramadan I started to pray the formal prayer because I thought prostrating myself in front of God will help me to surrender. And when I had the two persons I always wanted as my witnesses close to me by coincidence (one from the West, one from the East) I just took the chance and did it. Immediately, I felt a big relief.
I feel liberated now. I feel I finally ended my struggle and completed
something I was heading for from a long time. Al-hamdulillah.
There is an important point I want to make: I don´t feel I changed my religion. I feel I found God. In my case, God entered my life through Islam. This is why even some Christian friends can be pleased with my
step. God's message has always been the same, he sent it through different prophets renewing and correcting what people had made out of
it. As Mohammed is the last one of these messengers, Islam is the latest version of God's message. So if I decide to believe in God I can only become a Muslim, I cannot become a Christian or a Jew. Why
Would I follow an obsolete or antiquated version of God's message when there is a newer one?
It's a question of logic, again.